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Calcutta, India, August 1948. Teresa, Mother Superior of the convent of the Sisters of Loreto, is anxiously waiting for the letter that will finally allow her to leave her monastery and create her new order in response to the call she has received from God.
Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.
On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.
To fulfill her Father's wish, Grand Duchess Aurora (Huguette Duflos) is forced into an unhappy marriage with Grand Duke Rudolph (Henry Houry). He prepares to leave for the Congo but is murdered by his own brother (Georges Vaultier). Aurora goes to Paris with her father and, there, is told on the phone of her husband's death. After returning to the Kingdom, she meets a tutor (Jaque Catelain) who falls in love with her..
Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.
Vincent Van Gogh's life was a masterpiece painted with the dueling colors of madness versus genius. However, this inner battle gave birth to some of the greatest works of art known to man. The film traces Van Gogh's journey through the many twists and turns of his tumultuous and exciting life.
A communist soldier is sent to a remote region of China in order to collect folk songs. Staying with a peasant family (a widower with two small children), he discovers a community whose way of life is completely alien to him, but he gradually wins their trust.
Based on the famous story from the epic Shahnameh.
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
Alistair Heather sets out on a mission to reclaim the Scots language. For decades, his fellow-Scots speakers have been mocked, their language oppressed by educators, politicians and broadcasters. One famous report claimed that 'Scots is not the language of educated people anywhere'. Alistair tells the history of the language and argues that Scots is fighting back after decades of ignorance and oppression.
Englishman John Blackthorne, serving the Netherlands as navigator of the "Erasmus," is sailing a merchant fleet bound for uncharted Japan. In Asian waters, the fleet is caught in a violent storm and capsizes. This is a compilation of footage from the miniseries, intended for international theatrical release.
This one hour documentary examines the life of the famed Sharp Shooter and Wild West performer, Annie Oakley from her birth in mid nineteenth century rural Pennsylvania to her death in 1926. Many myths are overturned and the program also features a little known trial when Annie Oakley had to sue The Hearst Newspaper chain all throughout the country for libel when they reported the activities of someone who was impersonating the famed sharpshooter and besmirching her reputation.
A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world.
During the French Revolution, a surprising company shares a coach, trying to catch up something - the time itself, perhaps.
A look at the 1950s muscle men's magazines and the representative industry which were popular supposedly as health and fitness magazines, but were in reality primarily being purchased by the still-underground homosexual community. Chief among the purveyors of this literature was Bob Mizer, who maintained a magazine and developed sexually inexplicit men's films for over 40 years. Aided by his mother, the two maintained a stable of not so innocent studs.
In the 1960s, a young Spanish flamenco dancer named Antonia Singla captivated audiences with her strikingly passionate performances. Having lost her hearing at a young age, La Singla rose to fame with her commanding presence through a combination of her powerful gaze and thunderous movement. However, just at the height of her fame, she seemingly disappeared and decades later has been all but forgotten. When a young woman in Seville comes across La Singla’s story, a bigger picture starts to be unveiled. Through research, interviews and captivating archival footage, she starts to piece together the legend of La Singla. Through the beauty of her performances and the heartbreak of her story, La Singla celebrates and preserves the legacy of one of the greatest Flamenco dancers of all time.
A retrospective analysis of the causes and consequences of the catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986.
A portrait of the visionary Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972), according to his own words, taken from his diary, his correspondence and the texts of his lectures.